Glaucous Gull: This large pale gull is sometimes referred to as the ghost of winter. Look for the all white wingtips of these birds which can be found November-April along shorelines and at landfills.
Their aerial acrobatics are most enjoyable, especially when they hover over the water then dramatically dive in at high speeds to catch their aquatic prey.
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Sea Grant 50th Anniversary: Celebrating the work of our Extension educators. Related Content. Gulls are a major predator of less-common shorebirds. I would like to add my own response.
I have had in my middle aged years , many experiences with both gulls and crows. In a few countries. The social nature and ability to be omnivores and attempt co-existance with humans and each other as avian sis absolutely wonderful to observe and partake in.
Mr crow took a nice big piece of the cooked salmon over to Sammy in the snow and had to hop skip because of the birth and girth in his beak, dropped it literally 3 inches in front of Sammy, let out a mild caw caw, and stood guard while Sammy ate it.
When we feed them, we elevate their populations artificially. They were truly awesome parents, doing exactly the right thing at the right time. More recently, a hawk landed on the edge of our balcony, clutching a crow youngling — already dead. But it seemed like the hawk was intent on enjoying his dinner. He started to de-feather his prey right there, belatedly realizing that I was watching him and not happy to see the carnage… then he flew off, still clutching his dinner in one claw.
What an informative article — TY! I have been observing Gulls for a long time and am fascinated by anything Avian. While I applaud everyone for caring about wildlife, I have to agree with Don about not feeding them. But if you feel the need to feed them as many do , please give them nutritional food.
If they develop this, they will not be able to fly and it would be a sure death for them. I am also guilty about feeding Avians -but only injured ones with discretion. I took care of a Great Egret for 8 months — it had an injured leg. Great Egrets are Wading Birds — they need to wade in order to find food.
I knew with and injured leg — it was able to wade. I called many wildlife rehab places but none were interested in helping me. They said no place wants to take on a bird who only eats fish because it is very costly. I took on the cost myself and purchased bulk spearing bait fish and the Great Egret eventually healed — though it was long tough road as when it was almost healed — the bird injured it again.
I fed it the natural food it ate. It was still wild but learned to come like clockwork twice a day. I kept it alive through winter as it did not migrate due to its injury. It takes a lot of energy to migrate. My plan was to wean it off its feedings until Spring. His leg healed and then he started showing up sporadically.
I knew he would be okay as the baitfish it eats would be coming soon. I also have taken care of injured Gulls. I have encountered gulls who had no use of both legs and could not fly. I managed to capture them and brought them to a vet who would put them down. Again, I do not encourage the feeding of gulls seagulls or anything avian, BUT if you must, please feed them good foods. Hi Don..
Just love your site.. So many interesting stories and your answers to our questions are so helpful. I immediately returned to the vet who told me they had put him down already only 10 mins had passed! I was so terribly upset as I still am.. Since then..
As they live in a colony are they avoiding my garden because of the demise of one of their own and will I ever get them visiting my garden again? Feeling sad. Hi- very sorry the gull was put down. It was probably a break, if it looked completely dislocated. The female will mate again, if not this year then next. They will come back to your yard if you keep offering food.
Feeding gulls does increase their numbers artificially, and inflated numbers of gulls means higher predation on other sea birds. I work security doing night shifts on a site, there is a lot of seagulls who must have nests on top of this seven storey building. Through a few weeks of this back and forth with a few gulls they have now taken a complete dislike to me and now call in an army of seagulls whenever I do my patrols, I have completely stopped any type of noises as they swoop on me and circle overhead regardless.
If anyone has any knowledge on Seagulls behaviour I would greatly appreciate any advise. Thank you! Are you saying they pick you out of a crowd?
Or are they generally defensive right now? I would suggest giving them as wide a berth as possible. Hey, Don, more great stuff on your site. We on the shore in La Jolla are watching the couple on the roof next to us in their third year of child-rearing and eventual disowning. There have been many thrills including unusual swarming by other seagulls as the Parental Units stoutly defend their turf and their offspring possibly in that order , and at times the swarms appear to me to be helping to chase off rogue individual gulls.
Or I may have missed seeing an attacking raven or crow we have quite a few of them, too. Thanks again, Gary. Glad to read about other peoples interactions with their feathered friends. However, my friendship with one has turned into a problem.
So I am writing to warn others. He was a pest , until one day i gave him something , he took it and disappeared. From then on, i usually gave him a little something every time I went out with the feeders. One day I came home to see him sitting outside my window and I thought it was clever that he was anticipating me taking out the bird food, so i threw out his food which he took and went.
Anyway this has gone on for some time , then he turned up with his mate,so it was feeding for two. In general this has not been a problem and I would throw out some food whenever they turned up and gave me few squawks outside the window to say they were hungry.
Sadly, this year however, it has turned sour ,as they have taken to arriving outside my window, just after dawn and squawking for their breakfast. This originally had me getting up early to keep them quiet, by giving them something. Also this year I notice that a much bigger group dive bomb in as soon as i throw out their food.
Usually my original gull chased off any interlopers, but now he seems to try and chase them off,but with there being so many, he wastes his effort an ends up not getting any food. This makes him mad and causes him to make a hell of a racket.
Not good at that time of day. Now, as the mornings are getting brighter, I am afraid that they may start to appear even earlier, so I am trying to stop feeding them in the morning. The problem is that they never give up and can sit for 3 hours or more waiting and occasionally squawking outside.
This would be ok if I lived in a remote location,on my own, but I have many neighbours , Now I feel that they are starting to terrorize me and I wish to warn others that it is definitely not a good idea to feed gulls.
They are just too dam clever! Hi and thanks for the cautionary tale. If you stop rewarding them for coming, they will go away. If you reward them, even intermittently, they will never leave. Be strong. Good luck. Hi Don Thanks for your reply advice and support. I am beginning to dread that first early morning squawk, never knowing how long they will persist. Sometimes i just have to give them food to make them quiet.
So no more food, at all, from now on. Maybe get a set of ear plugs and hope they soon get the message. Hi Don I live in Ladybrook Belfast near enough to the lough to have visiting sea gulls this past. Week or two what looks like a pair are spending a lot of time on my roof by the chimney pot and poking into it at times. I lived one summer in a fishing town in western Iceland, working in a fish factory. We got accommodation by the harbour. The South African couple living in the attic started noticing that they were woken by the seagulls lesser black-backed gulls landing on the roof, very early every morning of the week, except Sundays.
They started trying to figure out when the gulls arrived if there were any signs in the village of work starting and thus promise of some food later in the day but saw nothing. When the gulls arrived there were no visible signs of operations by the harbour or in the fish factories.
So how did they gulls know that it was useless coming in on Sundays? Their only explanation after the summer was that the gull colony either owned a calendar or could count six working days and then had a day off. We were at the top of a bay peninsula on the coast of Maine and Helen was there, alone and based on our observations, very content to be alone.
She swam and floated with success in catching fish. At one point during the day, we saw her drop a shellfish on the rocks and swoop down to eat it. Helen made us think of ourselves and how much we enjoyed separating from society and wondered if her behavior was inconsistent with her peers — and us!! I live by English bay in Vancouver and always notice one grey seagull they look a lot like the seagull in the first photo squawking at and following around a white seagull.
The white seagull never flies away — just walks or paddles away. Hi Jeff. I am afraid of birds. Anyhow, I was walking on the beach. No one else was there except me and the sea gulls. One started hovering over me. I felt very uncomfortable as if he was stalking me as moving prey.
Then, another one joined it. So I picked up some sand to throw at them to chase them away and then I picked up a rock to throw at them to scare them away. I came across a few articles online, including yours.
So, have I just ruined my relationship with the seagulls on the beach? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for my next beach walk? Feeling inferior to these feathered creatures. HI- what time of year was it? Could they have been nesting? Two birds hovering over you sounds like you were near their nest, in which case the appropriate response would have been to move away. Peace offerings will mean nothing to them. So I think you should make a donation to your local wildlife conservancy to make karmic amends.
I live on a peninsula in Washington state and own three parrots of different species for 31 years…. I wonder if both birds create a special hybrid????? Hello Mr Don Enright, Thank you for your, informative, post on the seagulls, we call them Goeland in French please can i get your opinion on this I live in the south of France, and my Neighbour found a baby seagull, In the parking lot, with 1 leg trying to survive, he has the other leg,but the foot Part is missing!!!
Thank you kindly, for your response, Jenny, France. I hva just loved your article. I have become passionate about seagulls ever since they started moving into seasisde cities, like the one Im living in Barcelona Spain I find them fascinating, especially since I live in an apartment with a huge terrace that has nothing all around, but an old church where all the seagulls go to rest and get together. Im an animal communication fanatic, lets admit this beforehand It seems it has been lft alone for a long time now.
Its vocalizations somtimes sound like mournings, like soft eeeeeks eeks eeeks but very soft. Amusingly, Visiting a friend in Torquay from the balcony. I watched a man early morning with a plastic eagle owl. I watched with interested, what is he doing with that ornament on his roof. He secured it on the chimney, happy he clambered down and inspected his handwork.
Disappearing into his home looking very pleased. Day 3 gulls all lined up on the ridge of his roof. Quite looking and edging towards the owl. Day 5, I can only describe what I saw saw. The owl became very popular, the gulls liked to and would fight over. And the side splitting laughter when Mr Man sets up his ladder once again.
Only to produce a second owl for the opposite side of the roof. In the church choir in Ormskirk, Lancashire, England had their annual outing, on this occasion to Llandudno in North Wales. This was before seagulls became a byword for audacity and voracity. We were gobsmacked to watch as a lesser black-backed gull timed its flight to perfection to swoop down on a guy sitting on the edge of the prom eating chips big, fat French fries, not thin crispy slices of potato from paper.
As he lifted a chip to his mouth, the gull landed on top of his head, leaned down over his face and stole the chip that was almost up to his mouth, before flying off, all in an instant and one smooth, seamless movement. That has become a common sight. A few years later 10? In the intervening time they had become so much more audacious and voracious.
The new story comes from the end of July this year. On holiday in Keswick, Cumbria still England I was walking the dog and became aware that a couple of gulls were shouting loudly as we dog and I approached their location. Then suddenly they were swooping down on me. They would start from the roof ridge of a house opposite and fly down to pass inches above my head, screaming at me all the time.
For extra safety I stood with my back to a lamp post, so that if they did decide to get nasty they would have to factor in the danger of head-butting the lamp post. As I watched I spotted the reason for their aggression. Needless to say, I was the one who backed off in the end. They are actually more sensitive when it comes to nesting than you might think. There was a pair of Glaucous who nested on the roof next door every year, until the evil bldg mgr murdered the chicks, leaving the little bodies to decompose, as a warning.
Yes, I reported them, as this is illegal — they are a protected species — but unless there is live footage, pfft. For the next two years, the same couple would then walk around the whole roof, talking quietly in a mournful tone not the mating poetry , remembering.
The trauma must have prevented reproduction, or maybe the lack of finding suitable nesting space they mated, but …. Am pretty sure it was them who jealously killed a chick across the street, last yr, flinging it off the roof. It now comes with them here, another gull sometimes waiting in the wings, muttering. It is cool how they bond together in certain situations — not only dangerous ones, but coming of age rituals.
Gulls, raccoons, crows — this was their home before it was ever ours. I have been friends with a seagull for about a year and a half after he stole and tried to fly away with some prayers…….. About 10 days ago there was another gull there and i thought it was him and gave it a cashew, huge mistake,……. Today the renegate gull was busy on the other end of the beach and my seagull came and was just with me for a few minutes when the other one came and chased him off.
My seagull is a large herring gull and the new guy looks similiar…….. I feed them whole grain oats, which they love. They bathe daily in the channel when the tide is out, and chase the spotted shags who fish in a gang.
The seagulls flutter above the shags and steal their fish when the shags surface to eat. Lone seagulls randomly chase mallards, pied stilts, spur winged plover. A group recognises my car and arrive soon after I do. Some I can feed by hand as they willing stand on my outstretched arm. Others run about on the roof and sit on the wing mirrors. Such clever birdies. I love them. Most mornings, most evenings and occasionally between times they sit on the water, dipping heads, wings repeatedly in the water and shaking vigorously.
Is it to get rid of parasites? Or just freshening up like having a wash or a shower? A friend who lives on a boat in Emeryville, Ca. Found a dead seagull on the dock, it was there for several days and he finally put it in the water. Immediately, he noticed that many gulls were flying overhead and protesting loudly. Since then he has been followed by several gulls who dive at him when walking down the dock, even at night.
Is there any way to get them to stop? They may perceive your friend as a threat by associating him with the death.
They will stop eventually as they will learn that he is not a threat. I wish I could post videos… I have the same seagull who comes knocking on my door every day, just walks up the driveway! They have 3 chicks now and growing rapidly because they are taking such good care of them. Recently another pair of gulls have turned up and ousted them out of the nest after many days of the 2 males fighting.
So now the nesting couple have moved along the roof with their chicks and the new pair are not in the nest they are just on the roof in random places then every now and again the male will harass the nesting pair. Has anyone else seen this behaviour in gulls. Just saw two seagulls walking back and forth on my stone driveway between my house and fence on the New Jersey shore. They were walking in lockstep and it sounded like they were crying or bickering. I thought they may have been looking for a lost baby but did not see one.
It lasted for a few minutes and then one walked off to the back of the house and the other one walked off to the front of the driveway and few off.
Don, any idea what they were up to? I never really pay attention other than to close my windows when a group starts making too much noise beyond the airport noise. A couple of months ago I noticed a one with a broken leg. I felt terrible but quickly forgot about it. The next morning I saw it again and by the end of the week I was calling the rescue sites. A very nice woman from the nearby Gaines St. Humane Society came and of course — the bird was not there!!! Monday morning I see the bird sitting in the middle of the parking lot, with another bird.
I gave them some fresh fruit chunks and was shocked that they had zero interest! LOL I came in the office and grabbed a handfull of dog food kibble and they devoured it. And I thought they would pretty much eat anything! I continued to give them a little something every morning and very quickly they learned to recognize my red car and would come and wait for their snack. If the other bird was not with the one with the broken leg and I gave it food — it would screech out and the other bird would be there in seconds!
It became evident that the injured bird would not eat without the protection of the other bird so they were a package deal! I know — they were quite happy!
After a couple days of this they would be waiting for me and so excited — opening and closing their beaks wanting food. Some king-sized gull got wind of the seafood and would eat it all up and not let my two birds near it.
It was looking at me sort of panicked like it was in trouble and it was clearly afraid of that other bird. I went back to boring things like bread scraps and the big bird disappeared after a few days. I find their communication amazing. I feel so much better knowing that this injured bird has a buddy and a protector! They will take a bite and look at the other and make all these mumbling sounds.
Sometimes I see the injured bird alone but I know the other one is just a screech away! Luckily my cat was terrified of bugs and would come get me to remove it from her world but would never play with or eat them! One last interesting tidbit — I work for an architectural firm and we had a lifeguard tower project and everything that could go wrong — did go wrong. The project was a mess with lots of surprises.
Finally got past the worst of it and was ready to start work and a seagull nest was found in the building. It was pretty funny at that point — everybody just laughed and shook their heads.
Today at the ocean beach in Carmel, Ca, there was a very large group of Gulls. I took a video and then noticed one had picked up an orange tennis ball from the surf coming in.
As it was brought back again he waited for it to stop and then made the same gesture. He continued this game for about 10 minutes before losing interest- I was fascinated and did not know they played! Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content First-year glaucous-winged gull, Victoria BC. Ring-billed gull, Vancouver. Laughing gull, Antigua. Lesser black-backed gull, Sweden. Please share with your network. Posted in Nature , Photography , Wildlife and tagged gull , seagull.
What a fantastic article and what a great laugh I had! They begin migrating from their breeding sites back to their overwinter sites starting in late summer or early fall. Gulls will spend the winter in any part of the US warm enough to avoid freezing temperatures. Like most animals and pests, seagulls want warmth, shelter, a place to nest, food, and water. They often help themselves to garbage or other easily accessible snacks. Seagulls can survive just fine near the ocean because, unlike most birds, they can hydrate by drinking seawater.
Specialized glands located above their eyes allow them to excrete excess salt from their bodies quickly. In fact, gulls prefer fresh water to seawater. Which is why they often live near lakes and rivers. Gulls are opportunistic, foraging omnivores.
So, what do seagulls eat? They feed on a wide variety of insects, fish, invertebrates, eggs, nuts, seeds, and garbage.
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